Selecting files/folders to backup – Acronis

File-level backup is available for physical machines and virtual machines backed up by an agent installed in the guest system.

A file-level backup is not sufficient for recovery of the operating system. Choose file backup if you plan to protect only certain data (the current project, for example). This will reduce the backup size, thus saving storage space.

There are two ways of selecting files: directly on each machine or by using policy rules.

Direct selection

1. In What to back up, select Files/folders.
2. Specify Items to back up.
3. In Select items for backup, select Directly.
4. For each of the machines included in the protection plan:
   • Click Select files and folders.
   • Click Local folder or Network folder.
     The share must be accessible from the selected machine.
   • Browse to the required files/folders or enter the path and click the arrow button. If prompted, specify the user name and password for the shared folder.
     Backing up a folder with anonymous access is not supported.
   • Select the required files/folders.
   • Click Done.

Using policy rules

1. In What to back up, select Files/folders.
2. Specify Items to back up.
3. In Select items for backup, select Using policy rules.
4. Select any of the predefined rules, type your own rules, or combine both.
   The policy rules will be applied to all of the machines included in the protection plan. If no data meeting at least one of the rules is found on a machine when the backup starts, the backup will fail on that machine.
5. Click Done.

Selection rules for Windows

• Full path to a file or folder, for example D:\Work\Text.doc or C:\Windows.
• Templates:
  • [All Files] selects all files on all volumes of the machine.
  • [All Profiles Folder] selects the folder where all user profiles are located (typically, C:\Users or C:\Documents and Settings).
• Environment variables:
  • %ALLUSERSPROFILE% selects the folder where the common data of all user profiles is located (typically, C:\ProgramData or C:\Documents and Settings\All Users).
  • %PROGRAMFILES% selects the Program Files folder (for example, C:\Program Files).
  • %WINDIR% selects the folder where Windows is located (for example, C:\Windows).
    
    You can use other environment variables or a combination of environment variables and text. For example, to select the Java folder in the Program Files folder, type: %PROGRAMFILES%\Java.

Selection rules for Linux

• Full path to a file or directory. For example, to back up file.txt on the volume /dev/hda3 mounted on /home/usr/docs, specify /dev/hda3/file.txt or /home/usr/docs/file.txt.
  • /home selects the home directory of the common users.
  • /root selects the root user's home directory.
  • /usr selects the directory for all user-related programs.
  • /etc selects the directory for system configuration files.
• Templates:
  • [All Profiles Folder] selects /home. This is the folder where all user profiles are located by default.

Selection rules for macOS

• Full path to a file or directory.
• Templates:
  • [All Profiles Folder] selects /Users. This is the folder where all user profiles are located by default.

Examples:

• To back up file.txt on your desktop, specify /Users/<username>/Desktop/file.txt, where <username> is your user name.
• To back up all users' home directories, specify /Users.
• To back up the directory where the applications are installed, specify /Applications.